Spring 2021 True Natural Health Magazine – Your Questions Answered
By Roger French
QUESTION: The Natural Health Society seems to suggest that we eat plenty of fruit. But guidelines from other sources sometimes warn against too much fruit because of its sugar and fructose contents. What is your advice please?
Also, in your 7-day plant food variety challenge, there was no mention of grain foods? I thought the ‘seed-grains’, such as amaranth, buckwheat, millet and quinoa are OK. Is this wrong?
ANSWER:
Society Manager, Rebecca Smith, explains that in Natural Health Dietary Guidelines each meal is based on fruit or vegetables. Each meal is approximately three-quarters by weight either vegetables or fresh fruit, which means 350 – 450 grams in a meal. By consuming this proportion of these alkali-forming foods, we balance the acidic wastes produced by the acid-forming foods – the protein-rich and starch-rich foods. And as you say, seed grains such as amaranth, buckwheat, millet and quinoa can be healthy foods.
In my experience most people benefit from encouragement to eat more vegetable and fruit serves in their daily diet. This experience, and the knowledge that some people do better limiting or removing grains from their diet, led to us only including fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices in our inspiration list for the 7-day plant food variety challenge. The plant food inspiration list was designed to be a starting point and not a complete guide, just something to start people thinking about the number of different plant foods out there.
Of course, if you would like to go for a beautiful quinoa salad for lunch with some quinoa and mostly vegetables, that would be wonderful. For lunch I’m looking forward to a big bowl of vegetable soup with a slice of buckwheat loaf on the side – yum!
With respect to fruit quantity, fruit like any other food can be overeaten. However, it is important to view (and consume) fruit as a whole food, not just a source of fructose. Fruits are mostly water (ranging from bananas 75% to watermelon 93%) with a very significant fibre content, so the rate of absorption of the fructose is modest.
Fruits are excellent nutrition. Besides their contents of pure water, natural sugar and fibre, they are abundant in vitamins and minerals, with many fruits being loaded with antioxidants. With all their water and fibre content, fruits are wonderfully filling, which protects against overeating. The bottom line is, we believe, that to get too much fructose from whole fruit, you would need to eat unrealistically large quantities.
As with all things in health, there will always be caveats and personal application required. For example, in a person with diabetes, fruit intake needs to be restricted to the quantities indicated by blood sugar readings. Some people with underlying blood sugar regulation issues may react to fruit consumption. (Although the underlying cause of this reaction can generally be tracked back to previous consumption of refined sugar foods.)
The Natural Health approach assumes that we are physically active and that when we are out walking, cycling or running, etc., our bodies will benefit from a diet that includes energy-rich fruit. With all these variables to consider, it is difficult to say with certainty the correct number of servings of fruit per day for an individual. Although standard dietary guidelines suggest five serves of fruit and vegetable a day, research conducted by the Imperial College of London showed that 10 serves of fruit and vegetables is even better than five.
If you want to be conscious of your fructose consumption, a good approach to the 10-serves-a-day goal can be to eat more vegetables than fruit and choose fruits with a lower glycaemic load. Apples, pears, grapefruit, blueberries, cherries and strawberries, all fall into this category.